Destruction
by Antha32
Summary: "He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs." It had been a perfectly ordinary day until it wasn't. Ten-year-old Jace witnesses something he never expected and will never forget- his father's death. Based off a quote from CoB. All canon.


_A/N: Hello, everyone. This idea came to me today because I was thinking about our Jace and I remembered this quote (see below) from City of Bones and decided to write a fanfiction about it. I will eventually be updating **Gravity **but just decided to write this while it was in my head. I was thinking about starting a series like this of little stories brought on by hinted quotes in Cassie's books, so I guess this is an experiment to see how you like it. Please tell me what you think! Hope you all enjoy it- Sam_

Disclaimer: Jace and TMI belongs to Cassandra Clare. We all wish he was ours, but alas...

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Destruction

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_I heard them coming up the drive and went to tell him. He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs. I saw those men come in. They had others with them. Not men. Forsaken. They overpowered my father and cut his throat. The blood ran across the floor. It soaked my shoes. I didn't move. _–Jace, City of Bones

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It had been a perfectly ordinary day. There was nothing special about it. He was reading Latin, as usual; his father was working in his office, as usual; the servants were staying away from them, as usual. Not even the weather was remotely interesting, for the sun was normally in the sky with clouds. If he hadn't had something to do with himself, he thought, he would probably be bored. However, he never didn't have something to do with himself. His father made sure of that.

His father had high standards for him. He was to be intelligent, literate in as many important languages as possible as well as able to understand the content of the books he was reading. He was to be quick and able, easy with a weapon as if it was a pen and as fast and light as a cat while he fought. He was to be strong, physically in the fighting sense and emotionally in the everyday sense and everything in the Shadowhunter sense, for he was to be the best Shadowhunter. His father wanted this. And his father pushed him, and pushed him hard, and punished him when he thought necessary.

He knew it was for his own good, though, that his father was cruel sometimes. He knew his father loved him.

He rubbed his eyes and focused back on the text in front of him. He was tired- his father had put a new Mark on him yesterday and it had given him a terrible nightmare. It was not uncommon for him to have nightmares- _new Marks always do that to you_, his father had told him when he was five and had received his first one. _And man up, _his father had also added that time with a swing, and he had never told his father of nightmares again. Oddly, he couldn't remember the details of the nightmare, as he usually could, only that there had been blood on a wooden floor and he had been scared. He hadn't been able to go back to sleep afterwards.

He had to finish the book, though, or his father would be angry. He did not want that. He wanted more than anything to make his father proud.

So he focused on the Latin.

He didn't stop reading until he heard noises outside.

They lived in the countryside. His father had never brought another grown man to their home, much less another child for him to play with. He had never seen another person when he played outside. He had never heard another person in this house besides his father.

He _never _heard noises.

He knew something was wrong.

He put the book down and ventured towards his father's office, only to bump into him on the way up. He looked up at his father, who was considerably larger than him, and told him what he heard. His father looked alarmed, but not surprised.

"Hide," his father told him, taking his shoulders and pushing him gently, "Under the stairs. Make sure you can't be seen. Don't move unless I tell you to."

He did as he was told. He never disobeyed his father.

The stairs hid him mostly from view, but he could still see his father standing there, facing the door. He sunk deeper into the closet and further into the darkness until he felt he was safe enough to still look and be hidden like his father told him to. He put his arms around his knees.

_Nothing is going to happen, _he told himself. _Father will be fine. Father is always fine._

He could not shake the look on his father's face when he had told him though.

Two men entered the house. His father asked him what they wanted. They took him by the throat as monsters, no, _Forsaken, _entered the house. He sat, frozen, with his mind screaming at him to help, to go get the weapons he was trained with or go get help or do _something. _

_Don't move unless I tell you to, _echoed in his head. He stayed in is place and watched in horror.

The men hit his father. The men kicked him. The men slit his throat.

He didn't move. He couldn't move. He only watched as the men killed his father.

It had been a normal day. Nothing was supposed to happen. Nothing at all.

Yet, here he was, staring into the eyes of his dead father, watching as the men picked up his father's body and carried him out the door.

He couldn't shake the image of the last look of his father he had gotten.

Dead. Totally black, blank eyes. Not moving.

He forced himself to try and think of his father at other times. His father, picking him up and swinging him around when he returned from one of his trips. His father, leaning over him as he read aloud in Spanish. His father, pointing out the monuments of France to him. His father, swinging his hand back and slapping him hard after he failed at his training. His father, watching him proudly. His father, _not dead. _

He couldn't though. All he could see was lifeless dead eyes.

Later on, a servant would come, looking for his father to ask a question about dinner when she would notice the blood and scream. The Clave would be contacted and Shadowhunters would litter his house, looking for the lost body of Michael Wayland and asking him question. There would be loud voices directed at him, telling him _it's alright, you're fine _and asking him _do you know what happened _and _did your father tell you anything? _There would be other voices that were said in hushed tones that he wasn't supposed to hear but could, saying _he's be absent for years _and _who could have wanted to kill him _and _poor child, must be sick with grief, he's got no one now that his father is murdered along with his mother _and _we'll have to send them to the Lightwoods, Wayland left them as guardians, they are his godparents of course but they are stuck in New York with three small children already. _Someone would pick him up from his spot under the stairs and set him in a chair while frenzy moved around him, and eventually, when the shock wore anyway, he would speak to them.

Until then, he stayed in his spot and tried to ignore the thoughts of lifeless black eyes and told himself that he would be strong from now on; he would never let anyone die like his father did. He would be what his father wanted- the best Shadowhunter.

There was blood everywhere. It had flooded towards him and it covered his feet. He wanted to get it off him. He couldn't stand that he was sitting in his dead father's blood. He was scared. He wanted to run away.

He didn't, though. His father had told him not to move, so he didn't. He never disobeyed his father.


End file.
